Sustainability work

Working environment

The Department of Cultural Sciences shall be a creative, open, tolerant, safe and secure environment for education, research and administration. Students, teachers, researchers and administrators shall treat each other with respect for their expertise and experience, roles and functions.

At the Department of Cultural Sciences everyone shall feel respected in their professional role. Everyone shall be able to talk to everyone and no one shall be excluded in social contexts at work. We shall not speak badly about each other, or criticise colleagues in front of students. We shall, however, be considerate towards and help each other out at work.

Teachers shall be sensitive to the differing circumstances of the students.

Students and teachers are jointly responsible for ensuring that the education is conducted on the basis of the study objectives and everyone’s right to a safe working and study environment.

Equal treatment

Equal treatment and gender equality form an integral element of the Department’s core work and administration, with monitoring not only of inequality between genders, but also work on equal treatment as a whole.

Students, teachers, researchers and administrators must be able to feel safe in the knowledge that harassment in any form will not be tolerated.

The University is a shared public institution and everyone should be able to feel that it is theirs. Our staff and our student groups are quite homogenous and we must conduct an ongoing discussion on who we are here for and who we are interesting and relevant to.

The Swedish Act on Equal Treatment of University Students (2001:1286) and the Swedish Discrimination Act (2008:567) form the foundation of the University’s work on equal treatment. Under these provisions, universities have an obligation to investigate cases of discrimination and harassment and to work preventively on these issues (AFS:2015:4). Discrimination in legal terms is when someone in a position of power treats someone less favourably on the basis of their sex, transgender identity or expression, ethnicity, religion or other belief, disability, sexual orientation or age.

According to the University of Gothenburg’s Work Environment Policy, the working and study environment shall, among other things:

• create the conditions for equal rights and opportunities irrespective of sex, transgender identity or expression, ethnicity, religion or other belief, disability, sexual orientation or age,
• contribute towards the prevention of discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment and victimisation.

Environment and sustainable development

The Department of Cultural Sciences researches and educates on several of the key democratic issues of the day, including gender equality, equal opportunities, sustainable urban development, cultural heritage issues, education and communication. In short, the building blocks for tackling environmental and climate issues: what people do, think and want.

We support the strong engagement with the environment and sustainable development displayed by our students and in the research fields of cultural science, through individual examples and case studies, placements and project work, and in our seminars.

The Department of Cultural Sciences’ work on the environment and sustainable develop is founded in steering documents such as the University of Gothenburg’s Environmental Policy, the Environmental Handbook, and the Faculty of Humanities’ Action plan for the environment and sustainable development 2011–2015. The issues in focus are:

• The indirect environmental impact, which includes education, research and collaboration with society
• The direct environmental impact, which includes energy consumption, recycling, travel, health issues and procurement